Dip in January book sales blamed on Michael Gove ‘teaching manual’

Waterstones have today announced that pre-orders of the widely anticipated manual, ‘Teaching: Everything I know’, penned by education minister Michael Gove, have been ‘spiralling into negative figures’.

‘We just can’t cope with the violent lack of demand’, said 42-year-old bookseller, Sharon Turnpike. ‘I’ve been on the phones all day taking requests from teachers wishing to pre-emptively return the copies, which they’re sure will be gifted to them by well meaning-but-dim relatives in 2014.’

Thomas Higgins, a representative from Islington Books who specialise in the publication of contemporary MP fiction, also expressed his dismay: ‘None of us could have predicted this unfortunate turn of events, and it really is a shame, especially since this was the first of a planned series. Bookshelves no longer have ‘Midwifery and Me’ by Jeremy Hunt to look forward to in 2015, and Nick Clegg’s debut submission; ‘Making the Perfect Latte: Just how Dave Likes it’, will probably never see the light of day, although it is my personal favourite’.

The self-described ‘informative read’ includes a section on the history of WWI, with Gove detailing the catalyst to be a man named ‘Arty Uke, shooting an Ostrich because he was slightly peckish’. He then proceeds to advise teachers against using the BBC comedy Blackadder as a lesson aid; ‘because as we all know, Mr Bean and that guy from Time Team are idiots.’

Andrew Thomas, manager of Waterstones in Bridgend, who’ve been forced to rent out additional storage space to house all the unsold copies, said; ‘I haven’t seen a book this unpopular since the publication of the Richard Madeley autobiography, yet the reviews on the cover sleeve are surprisingly positive. According to the testimonials, ‘Michelle Glove’ and ‘Mickey Grove’ both describe it as ‘revolutionary’, and maths teacher ‘Mike Groove’ claims that the ‘effectiveness of his teaching increased by 113% after skimming the first page’.

He added: ‘Based on this hype, I decided to read Gove’s criteria regarding maths in the curriculum myself and have rated it a solid nine out of six’.